Eastside Rebirth Potter Park Is Getting Reprieve From Bad History With New Homes, Roads, Attitude.

April 16, 1993|By LEE ERIC SMITH, Staff Writer

For most of its history, the neighborhood called Potter Park has been regarded as Davie`s troubled stepchild.

The community is as old as the town itself and looks it. Many houses surrounding the park have been condemned, a small detail that hasn`t stopped people from living in them.

A drive through the neighborhood conjures images of Depression-era country life, soiled by urban society`s ills -- including drug trafficking and the gangs that go with it.

Now, in hopes of resurrecting the neighborhood, Davie is buying land and demolishing buildings in the Potter Park area. The town wants to reinvent the neighborhood as ``Eastside,`` a suburban-style development with new roads and new homes.

If it works out the way city officials want, Eastside will have a new attitude as well.

``This is not about tearing down things,`` said Merrill Ladika, director of the Davie Community Redevelopment Agency. ``We want to turn that area back to what it originally was, an ordinary neighborhood.``

Plans include three new east-west streets, to break up the area`s long, narrow roads. One of the new streets will link a new community center to Potter Park, which features a baseball field and basketball court.

Davie already has purchased 10 of the 15 plots it had planned to buy. It has razed five dilapidated buildings. Eventually, one of the new streets will be put in.

That`s just Phase 1. Other phases will include more land buys, more demolitions, more new construction.

At the center is a plan to build and sell new homes to moderate- and low- income families at low cost.

The Community Redevelopment Agency will provide first-time homeowner- occupants with land for their homes at no cost, Ladika said. Those applicants then will select a home design.

If approved for credit, the Broward County Housing Finance Authority then will provide the applicant with a loan to construct the home. Once the home is completed, the construction loan would become the mortgage.

Under the plan, a 1,300 square foot home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms could be built for $65,000, said Lennard Robinson, director of the finance authority. An applicant could move into a brand new home for about $3,000 down, and pay a monthly mortgage of $560, he said.

Ladika said each neighborhood improvement has a specific purpose:

-- New roads. Three new east-west streets will dissect the area`s long, narrow north-south roads. By creating smaller street blocks, officials hope to create a better sense of community, where everyone knows and cares about their neighbors.

-- A new community hall. Once completed, a variety of uses are planned -- youth programs, senior services, wellness seminars, and money management classes. The idea is to provide constructive activities for residents.

-- New homeowners. Officials believe the area`s new homeowners will be more protective of their homes and neighborhood than some renters in the area, deterring crime and encouraging home maintenance.

The agency also wants to attract businesses to the western side of the park -- a small grocery store, a barber shop, or a laundromat. If successful, Davie will have created a neighborhood with recreational, educational, shopping and employment opportunities -- all within a few minutes walk of home.

``We`re aiming for this neighborhood to be ethnically and economically mixed,`` Ladika said. ``That`s what makes neighborhoods work.``

But Davie has its own motives, too -- by increasing property values in the area, Davie also inflates its tax base.

``This is about economics,`` Ladika said. ``That`s why we`re doing it. Altruism is the icing on the cake.``

Residents of the neighborhood have mixed reactions.

``They`re just trying to move us blacks out,`` said Booker T. Green, a homeowner in the area. ``They ain`t trying to help.``

Green said he was raised from a child in the Potter Park area, as were other residents, many of whom are related to each other.

``The way it is here, if you don`t have food for the children, you can go to the neighborhood and ask for chicken or rice or something,`` said Alberta Glover, Green`s niece. ``This is a very family-oriented area.``

In January, the redevelopment agency purchased Glover`s two-bedroom, one bath home and helped move her into a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Fort Lauderdale. The town bulldozed her Potter Park home to make way for one of the new streets.

Glover likes the additional space -- there were eight people living in the Potter Park house. But the move was difficult, too, especially for her 84- year-old grandmother.

``She`s been here all of her life,`` Glover said. ``She built that house. She told me she couldn`t even imagine living somewhere else.``

Edna Potter, the 30-year resident for whom the neighborhood is named, fought to get paved roads, water and sewage in the mid-70s. ``But recently, I`ve watched it turn into a slum,`` she said.